


The Flower

by hati_skoll



Category: MapleStory
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hati_skoll/pseuds/hati_skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Lotus-centric one-shots written for maple_60mins prompts. Featuring canon Lotus, and AU Lotus, and quite a bit of Black Mage X Lotus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thirst

**Author's Note:**

> For the 60 minutes maplestory challenge - God, I died writing this. First story for the maple fandom, I apologize for out-of-character characters, and generally bad grammar, phrasings and whatnot. I can't write fast, my brain turns to mush when I try to.
> 
> Also, here's my twitter, I guess I'll be trying to keep it alive with updates and schtick: https://twitter.com/KanoHki

It sprouted from the glassy cerulean depths of still water, shattering the sky’s lovely reflection in ripples as it trembled in the summer breeze. Leaves swamped the pond’s surface, the way storm clouds swallowed the pure, shining blue of the sky. And yet, despite all it had consumed, its petals drooped, pink tips bleached out in a sickly off-white. It didn’t have… enough. It wanted. More. But… what?

What did it want?

What?

…

…

…

“My throat itches,” the girl wailed.

Lotus looked up at his sister. “Then get a glass of water.”

“It itches,” Orchid said. “It’s hot and terrible and…”

“Itchy?”

“Yes!”

He sighed, got up from his chair, made his way to their pantry and poured his sister a glass of water. “Here. Drink.”

She looked at the glass with a certain expression of disgust. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t ‘don’t like it’,” Lotus said meaningfully, gulping down half the glass to make his point. “Whatever I like, you’d like it too. Right, Orchid?”

She made a face, snatching the glass from his hand and finishing it. “I guess it’s not half bad.”

“It’s not.”

“Hey, Lotus?” she spoke while staring hard at the empty glass, “I don’t know if I’m imagining it. But… These days, you are… you. And I… am me. Are we growing more different or am I just– Hey! Wait, where’re you going?”

“To take a piss. What, you need to piss too?”

She groaned. “God, Lotus. That’s disgusting.”

“That’s right, disgusting,” he tasted the word on his tongue, “Grow up, Orchid. We don’t need to do everything together.”

The silence that came after his words was thick enough to choke on. He didn’t turn to look at his sister. He couldn’t bring himself to. What he said had been a slap to her face. He didn’t mean to. He meant it, every word of it, but he didn’t mean to hurt her. He’d never hurt Orchid. Not on purpose.

He ran, crashing through the door and the hallways. He couldn’t breathe. His throat… It itched. It itched something hot and terrible… and itchy. It itched.

“You’re in a hurry.”

Lotus stopped. It was the magician, the one who gave them their bodies, the one Orchid and he had pledged to follow. Because they’d thought he’d be fun. Well, he wasn’t quite the dictionary definition of the word, but he could be… passably amusing.

“No shit, Magician Obvious,” Lotus rasped.

The magician stared, and Lotus’ skin broke out in gooseflesh. Those black on black eyes seemed to peel away all his layers. The magician had given them their bodies, Lotus wondered if he could take away these puppets of flesh and bone just as easily.

“Did you lose something, flower?”

His throat itched. “No.”

“Maybe you have. Maybe you have, but you don’t know you’ve lost it. Maybe it’s something you didn’t know you possess in the first place.” The magician said, thin lips curling in a parody of a smile.

“I haven’t lost anything,” Lotus paused, before continuing, voice sharper, harsher, surer. “I never had anything to lose anyway.”

The magician regarded him with those endlessly obsidian eyes. They were stark, set in a thinly delicate face, with bone-white pallor. The magician didn’t put down his hood too often. Others claimed that he didn’t want to be seen. But that didn’t feel quite right. No, it wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to be seen. The magician met his eyes, and glanced away.

Lotus pursed his lips. It was more like the magician didn’t want to see. And Lotus couldn’t fathom why. The magician had a nice sort of face, slightly too thin, and slightly austere, but nice. He had fine features, but harsh eyes and cruel lips, as if he’d started out soft, was beaten and bent and hardened that way.

“If you insist, flower,” the magician shrugged. “But I have something to show you. Something fun to liven your spirits.”

“What is it?”

Cold fingers wrapped around his wrist and suddenly they weren’t in the sanctity of the magician’s castle. They were among the foliage, in the cold night air, looking on as a girl stepped onto her balcony. She was beautiful – in a kind, lovely sort of way. She was probably the sort of person who loved everyone, and whom everyone loved. And Lotus disliked her on sight.

“What’s wrong, Empress?” a voice called out, full of daredevilry and mischief, “Did something happen?”

The girl – Empress Aria, Lotus recognized – didn’t seem too startled. She smiled, bright and cheerful. She had a gentle smile. God, he hated it. Soft, sweet, good – he hated it.

“Phantom, are you here to steal skaia again?” Empress Aria teased.

The owner of that voice – Master Thief Phantom, probably – appeared from the shadows, grinning recklessly as he swiped his hat off in a flamboyant bow. “I’m afraid I have to disappoint, your majesty, but I’m out to steal a different treasure tonight.”

The couple laughed, lost in their cutesy, vomit-inducing romantic world of two. Lotus grimaced in distaste. This was far from his idea of fun, miles and miles away, in fact. This was about as un-fun as watching geeky little mage-scholars play house with dragons.

The magician put a finger to his lips, when Lotus was almost demanding to leave. Lotus sighed, and turned back to the lovebirds.

“Phantom,” Empress Aria was saying, “Do you have any thoughts on being a hero? You’ll be fighting the evils of this world, I believe you’d be a tremendous help to the cause.”

Lotus paused. Fighting the evils of this world. The girl seemed so earnest, so pure, so… righteous. The evils of this world. Them. The good Empress was talking about them, about the magician, the commanders, Von Leon, Arkarium, Demon, Orchid… him. The evils of this world. Lotus came close to laughing.

How well he knew that ‘the evils of this world’ weren’t quite so… corporeal. He’d been a thought, a spirit, born out of the darkness of mankind. The evils of this world were never distinct people, it would never work like that. But the righteous, and the just, and the good, were always desperate to fight for a cause – however misguided, however needless.

The battle was decorous. Fighting the evils of this world – how noble, how saintly, how disgustingly good. It reeked of hypocrisy. His throat itched. It burned.

Phantom shrugged, rolling his shoulders in an exaggerated way. “I don’t know. It’s not my thing. I like how I’m living now, living freely, not being tied down to anything or anyone.”

Again, Lotus paused. Freedom, the word seared in the back of his mind. Freedom, not being tied down to anything or anyone. Lotus brought his hand up to his neck, his mouth opening, lips mouthing senseless words, but he couldn’t make a sound. His throat was on fire. And suddenly, he was back where he started – in the quiet, deserted, black marble hallways of the magician’s stronghold.

The magician’s cold fingers pried his hands away from his neck. Lotus screamed, but he didn’t make a sound. Not a single sound.

“Wasn’t that fun, flower?”

“My throat –“

“I can’t hear you,” the magician smiled, leaning in close, “You’re going to have to speak up.”

“It… itches.”

Large, icy hands wrapped his, and then a touch of metal burned his palms and fingertips. A dagger materialized, clasped in both their hands. The magician’s lips feathered against the shell of his ear. “Here. Drink.”

…

…

…

Its petals glowed a vibrant shade of crimson, the pond’s surface a glistening of garnets that mirrored the dying reds of sunset.


	2. Keep on Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mafia AU, featuring our favorite flower, Lotus. Black Mage/Lotus mentioned off-screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I died with this again. God, I hate the ending of this one, it's crap.

It was a good night. They’d wrapped up a fair number of transactions, did a little pest control on the side. Oh, there were few who’d tried to run, to play hooky, to cheat, but they’d rounded up those pathetic scumbags and collected their dues.

There had been tears shed and blood spilled, but it was all in a night’s work. Daddy not paying up, kid? Too damned bad, off to the auctions with you. Boyfriend upped and left? Tough luck, looks like you’re paying off his debts with your body. And then the classic: golden boy Boogie crapped his pants and jumped the state like a bat out of hell? Well, now… His mommy just won an all-expense-paid appointment with our friendly resident surgeon.

“Lotus, stop romancing your shitty phone and give us a hand over here.” The older man said, as he threw a fine piece of ass, bound and gagged, into the back of their van. He slammed the door shut, looking undeniably aggrieved as he waited for Lotus’ response, scarlet hair wild and unkempt after kicking that wild cat quiet.

Lotus sighed, almost exasperatedly, eyes not once leaving his Samsung S4. “I’m not putting my fingers anywhere near your dick, you past-your-prime pervert. That’s filthy as fuck.”

“I wasn’t asking for a hand job.”

Lotus’ rapid typing faltered for a second. “Didn’t have you pegged as a bottom, Leo my man. Sorry, finger fucking’s out of the question too. Try Arkarium, guy’s got a thing for macho types.”

“Fuck you!”

“I already told you, no,” Lotus frowned in concentration, fingers steadily tapping against the screen of his phone, “What, you can’t take a rejection? Look, ‘bara’ ain’t my kink, okay? I mean, your muscles are… nice, and all. But I’m not fucking you, period.”

“Brother, he meant for you to help put the bitch in the van.” Orchid said, putting her hand on Von Leon’s shoulder, which served as both a peace offering and a threat.

Lotus pulled out a tablet from his bag, swiping the screen and tapping away at it. “Why are we collecting dogs again?”

The last and youngest of the group, Damien, ran a hand through his hair, snorting. “The girl. Help put the girl in the van, dumbass.”

“Well, you could have said so. Idiots.”

Orchid sighed and lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. Her brother was smart, smarter than the whole lot of them. He was one of the smartest people in the world, and he had ridiculously high I.Q. scores to prove it, but at the same time, he could be as obtuse as a cop on a blind lead.

“Boss sure had a lot of us down for a simple enough job,” Damien mused, adjusting his eye patch.

Lotus stopped then, looking up from his screen, violet eyes narrowed. “If you think that Ciardha would waste his manpower needlessly, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

“The bitch’s just a doctor with a prissy, stuck-up attitude, must have licked the boss the wrong way with her sharp tongue,” Damien grinned, “Or maybe it’s cause she didn’t.”

“Ciardha would have your balls if he heard that,” Lotus said lightly.

“You gonna tell on me, Lotus? Oh, wait, what was it the boss called you? Flower. That’s right. A fucking gay name, if you asked me-“

“I’m not asking you.”

“- Little flower going to run crying to his watering can, huh?” Damien snickered, laughing at his own joke. God, that idiot.

“Damien, you’re overstepping yourself,” Von Leon warned, “It’s none of my business if you’ve a pissing match with Lotus over here, but if you’re making those remarks at the boss’ expense, you’re insulting him. And you’re insulting all of us.”

Lotus stilled. “Leo. Quiet.”

“You little– And I was speaking up for–“

“Quiet. Now.”

Foot falls, they were soft and almost inaudible. But there was that familiar scraping of rubber on asphalt, and that tell-tale, rhythmic gasp of too-nervous breathing. There were more of them, and the rest were noticeably more discreet, more experienced. But they had a novice tagging along, probably a brat fresh out of training, and he gave them away.

Lotus tapped his screen, moving a hand to the blue tooth device he wore on his right ear. Heat sensors and infrared sensors activated, unidentified armed entities approaching at forty five, sixty-seven and two thirty-eight degrees.

He angled his head in the direction where their enemies were drawing near, and Orchid smiled, dimpling. Von Leon gave a curt nod, while Damien bared his teeth in a hungry grin. Three… Lotus slid his tablet back. Two… He slid his hand to the gun at his thigh. One. Gun up, safety off. He braced his arm for the recoil, and fired.

The shots were loud and invasive in the night’s heavy blanket of silence. But they were in a filthier part of the city, so gun shots didn’t draw too much attention. People wouldn’t come running – no, they’d run away. There was a crack, and a thump, a good sound. The sound of flesh hitting concrete, the sound of a bullet burying itself where it should. Lotus smiled.

“Evan!” A frantic scream, even better.

Lotus ducked behind the van for cover. The rest had split, each taking care of things on their side. It was oddly quiet on his end. Strange, there had been more than one of them. He listened out for footsteps, but there was none. He held his gun cocked and ready, keying into his tablet at rapid speed. Armed entities at thirty metres, unmoving.

Hm. They wouldn’t throw a bomb over, not if they cared for the girl inside. Lotus pursed his lips, deliberating.

“Evan, hang in there, now. Breathe steady.”

“Freud, I…”

“I’ll get you to a doctor, god. Evan.”

Damn. He hadn’t managed a kill shot. This was going to be a pain in the ass. But it could work in his favour. After all, kidnapping the pretty doctor was only a ruse. Ciardha had wanted to draw the I.M.P.L.E.A. out – after all the dealings they’d foiled in the recent months.

He needed to fetch a couple of them back for questioning. Alive. Or at least, alive enough.

“Freud, what happened?” Another voice came, older than Evan’s and sharper than Freud’s.

Armed entity moving at thirty metres. Lotus tensed. “Evan’s been shot. The bullet didn’t hit his vitals, but it might have nicked an artery.”

“The enemy?” the newest voice asked.

There was an uneasy silence. Armed entities still motionless at thirty metres, Lotus’ grip on his gun tightened. He adjusted the wing mirror of the van, so that he could keep an eye on the trio. They were looking in his direction, almost as if they were waiting. But what?

Then there was a clatter of metal, and a bright light exploded, turning his world into an endless stretch of vacant white. Armed entity approaching at twenty metres. Shit. He raised his gun. Armed entity at ten metres. Lotus crouched low, arm raised in the approximate angle of the chest. The chest was broad, easier target than the head, and a good enough chance for a kill.

Armed entity at five metres. He pulled the trigger.

Then, there was a voice in his ear. “Got you.”


	3. Requiem for Fragile Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Fragile. This one is pretty self-indulgent, but really easy to write, because it's an established head-cannon of mine. Also, I was wondering about Freud and Lotus' interactions since I've hardly read or seen any of that. They have some sort of Dead People Coalition going on for them here-

He shouldn’t feel different. He started out as a spirit, then that corrupted, stick-up-his-ass of a magician gave him a body – a shell – and now he was back where he started, a spirit. So no, he shouldn’t feel different. He shouldn’t feel hollowed out. He shouldn’t feel that tingly zap in the spine he didn’t have. He shouldn’t feel… whatever it was he felt. He didn’t know what it was – just that he shouldn’t be feeling it.

“I envy you sometimes, Lotus,” his companion – enemy, partner in disembodiment – lamented.

He didn’t know why he bothered with the man. “That’s the seven thousand eight hundred and thirty second time you’ve said it.”

“To put things in perspective, we’ve been so carelessly thrown together by fate for a hundred years, that’s thirty-six thousand and five hundred days, which means I’ve said it only once in five days, give or take. That’s not too extreme, if you asked me.”

“Dragon Master, you live to torment me, don’t you?”

“On the contrary, I died to torment you. I’m not exactly alive now, am I?”

He looked at the man, barely making out his features in the plane of nothingness both of them existed on. He could go down to the realm of the living, or up, he didn’t know where it was in relation to where they were. Up or down or sideways. Either way (he cracked up a little at that pun), he supposed he could make a trip back. But it was a waste of energy, and while he used to be able to wreck a good amount of havoc on the good people of Maple without breaking a sweat, he was now tied down by things – feelings.

Sometimes he liked it better when he didn’t know what it was to feel.

“I wish you would just go away.”

“Well, you could go away.”

He didn’t want to admit his weaknesses in front of this man, his enemy, a thorn in his Magician’s side. “I hate you.”

The man chuckled. “No, I don’t think you do.”

He tried for a different line of attack. “I hate your gigantic lizard of a pet, and that blasted thieving best friend of yours.”

The man fell silent for a moment. Good, he’d finally poked him where it really hurt.  But then the man spoke, “Well, I know you don’t hate Afrien – it’s hard to hate somebody you don’t know.”

“That’s not true,” he interjected, “You hated him. My magici- What did you call him?”

“The black mage,” the man seemed to be hiding a grin, “Well, no, I hated what he did, but I didn’t hate him. I hated his ideals, the dictatorship, the devaluation of free will. I hated that, but I didn’t hate him.”

“Same thing,” he protested, but he didn’t really mean it. “Well, anyway, I still hate your thief.”

“I don’t really blame you for that,” the man said, “Not many people can stomach Phantom’s little quirks.”

“He’s a menace to society.”

“I thought that would have endeared him to you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, and the man smiled at him. It was a kind smile, and he hated it. He hated it for how it made him feel.

“You want to know what I think?” the man said, he would have said no, but the man continued anyway, “You were jealous, back then – and maybe even now. Many people are, you know, jealous of Phantom. I was, just a bit. Jealous of how freely he lived, he was elusive like his namesake, and he was free, like the birds in the sky. Literally. He lives in a goddamned blimp, for god’s sake. He was – and he still is, I’d reckon – so full of life. It’s really enviable.”

He didn’t want to hear this, hear about someone he hated.

The man looked at him, and he felt as if he was laid bare. “Hate isn’t unexplainable. Well, in a way, I suppose it is. We hate what we can’t explain, we hate what don’t understand. Because the unknown is always terrifying – I’d know that better than anyone, I was so desperate for knowledge back in the days.”

“You’re telling me that I hate him because I fear him. That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous to fear the person who murdered you.”

“And you fear him? My magician?”

The man nodded unhesitatingly. “I do, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

He shook his head. “I’m not like you. I’m not afraid.”

“You hide behind endearments and insults to avoid using names, avoid the intimacy of using those names. Maybe you’re not afraid of phantom, but you’re afraid of your feelings – you can’t understand them – and Phantom made you feel, didn’t he? Jealousy, vulnerability – granted, not the best emotions, but you shouldn’t write off all emotions just because your firsts scared you.”

“Feelings are for the weak,” he spat out, “Feelings make you weak.”

“Your battle with Phantom should have taught you that it isn’t the case.”

He snapped, “Your thief is no stronger than me. His will wavers, his mind is malleable. He’s a pathetic excuse of a hero.”

The man reached out, almost as if to pat him, and he moved out of reach. He didn’t trust the Dragon Master. The man was cunning, his touch was comfort and warmth. It was poison.

“You are strong, Lotus.”

“I said I’m not– Wait, I’m strong?”

 He froze, and this time, when the man moved towards him, he didn’t evade the touch. The Dragon Master – Freud – wrapped both hands around his, clenched tight into fists. “You’re strong, Lotus. But your strength is fragile.”


End file.
